4043/Sepulchre of the Giants

Sepulchre of the Giants
Date of Scene:	23 April 2016
Location:	The Great Ruin
Synopsis:	Beyond the robotic horde is... A robot factory!? The party takes on a giant robot tank and travels deeper into the base, only to find themselves face to face with a relic of the ancient age. One that doesn't want the people of the present to meddle in his domain.
Cast of Characters:	William Pauwel, 385, 823, Gaonoir, 571, 342, Starlight Bandits, Kotone Yamakawa

---

William Pauwel has posed:
A couple weeks ago, Iskandria had a minor crisis far to its north. Ordinarily, disturances would be quelled through the sudden and severe application of the empire's security forces, but this one was a... special case. A mountainside had crumbled away, revealing a great gate underneath, from whence came a veritable onslaught of explosively violent machines- a horde that was more than a match for the Iskandrian Legions.

Fortunately, Will Pauwel knows people who know people and, together, a team of Elites collapsed two more cliffs right on top of the robotic army.

But just because the immediate threat has passed doesn't mean that there's not still work to do.

    There's a much larger robot in there. MUCH larger. Some have even seen it- a towering, mechanical behemoth lurking ominously in the shadow of the great gate.

And it just so happens that there's somebody with a vested interest in /getting/ it. For science. Why else would you want a giant robot?

Certainly not just to wage a one-woman crusade of revenge.

Probably.

    Regardless, Will waits on top of the crumbling mound of fallen earth just outside the great gate. There's something worth finding in there- he can practically smell it! So he's called up some friends, and put out some word. All that he needs to do now is wait for them to show up.

Yuna Kagurazaka (385) has posed:
Yuna still has a bad feeling about why that woman is so determined to lay claim to a giant robot ... or to have other people claim it for her benefit. And given the amount of war which Iskandria is already seeing, she doubts the woman who wants to find that robot is doing so to pose it in her garden and scare off crows or something refreshingly banal like that.

Anyway, misgivings or not, Yuna is here, and as before, the full Matrix of Light is accompanying her: the little robo-faerie Elner, hovering next to Yuna and already running scans, while Jiina, Marina, and Erina are in their armored combat forms, ready to help fight or just provide additional overwatch.

"So are we likely to run into any more trouble trying to get to the colossus ... ?" Yuna wonders while the group is gathering.

Xiao Li Yu (823) has posed:
     DID SOMEONE MENTION GIANT ROBOTS?

     Because if they did, Xiao was THERE and ON THE SCENE. For once in her life anyway. The scientist has been cooped up doing gods know what in her lab for months now. It was time for her to stretch her legs! Time to head out and sate her curiosity about these killer machines from a desolate world!

     Or something to that effect.

     Actually, she didn't even walk at all. Wearing a labcoat and a blue cheonsam, as her usual getup, Xiao comes floating down from the sky, her anklets emanating waves of non-elemental energy. "Oh dear, oh my. Have a look at this." She smirked, her golden eyes peering this way and that. "It looks like an earthquake struck, which then caused an avalanche~"

     Upon spotting Will and Yuna, she landed and waved a sleeve cheerily. "Hello person one, and person two. Fine day today, yes yes~?"

Gaonoir has posed:
After what happened the last time he crossed paths with this world, they ended up crawling through an ancient bunker and fighting off hordes of elderitch alien cyborg mutants to shut the place down. Needless to say, after that Gaonoir was a bit sketchy on bringing Erika along. But she was persistant, because this sort of grand discovery of lost ancient things and possible conspiracies around them was so definately the sort of thing she was into, and would have nothing of having to stay behind.

Besides, if this goes south, he's going to need her to reach his full power level. As much as he loaths to admit that much reliance on some else still.

But it's almost impossible to sway a stubborn nerd, and she's right behind the dark canine digimon as he ambles up to the top of the rockpile, giving Will a brief nod in greeting. Then idly kicks a rock off the top of the pile. "Looks like you guys already had quite the party."

"By the looks of it, that party was quite 'rockin'." Gaonoir groans at the terrible joke, while Erika just snickers at herself before holding up her camera and seeing if she can get a decent shot of the gate. Even at a distance it's probably not going to fit entirely in frame though.

Alexis Maaka (571) has posed:
    Eldricht Alien Cyborg monsters are the last thing Maaka wants to come back to find, but a job's a job after all. Giant Robots drew Maaka's interest, and while she was still patching some damage done to her suit, she was still up for a little adventurer as the cyborg arrives.

    Slinging a DLT-19 heavy repeating blaster rifle over her shoulder, a little trophy from Juno's world she plucked from an unlucky Stormtrooper, Maaka whistles sharply as she approaches Yuna, Will, Gaonoir, and Xiao. "Hey folks." She greets with a lazy salute, clapping shoulders and the like.

    "So who's the crazy broad that hired us to go get this thing, anyway?" She asks Will, not really expecting much of an answer. SOmeone that intent on getting herself a mecha usually doesn't advertise herself well.

Nozomi Houken (342) has posed:
    Nozomi Houken was there for that robotic uprising. Nozomi Houken helped put that uprising down. It was, as usual, something of a difficult time for her. But having had time away to relax, and knowing that she (probably) won't have to combine with Taiga again this time, the Lady has brought her TIGER along for the mission. Because Will is a good person and needs help.

    She's gonna be hiding behind Yuna from Gaonoir and Li Yu, though.

Starlight Bandits has posed:
    It's not hard to guess why a certain Emilia is here. There's a giant robot in there, you can /literally/ see it, and you expect her to stay away? Sure, most here only knew her briefly, but that brief exposure was more than enough.

    One way or another, she's getting that robot.

    Emilia arrives, clad again in that labcoat with the modified patch and the leather armour with the holstered grenade launcher. But this time, she doesn't bring any members of the Legion along. This time, she shows up riding one of the robots from the horde. There's some obvious bits where she had to patch it up, but it seems docile enough now.

    "Haaaah~ Fresh air that carries the scent of adventure! I've been cooped up in the labs for weeks getting Montgomery here up and running." She gives the robot an affectionate rub, before turning her attention to the Elites. "Alright people! Today, we are getting that big robot! I don't care how we do it, just get me in front of it. But! If any of you lay even a scratch on that beautiful machine..."

    Her glasses gleam, obscuring her eyes. "We shall have words. Am I clear?"

Kotone Yamakawa has posed:
So here Kotone was once more, she was curious about William's world after that horror show in the lab. What else would be sleeping here? What else would be there to deal with. Either way she was curious were there only horrors burried under the sand or what might else be left here maybe thing that could help people either way here she was coming in on her Knight Motorcycle and skies the craft to a halt and leaps off it as she gets close and she smirks for a moment.

"Gao that pun was criminal, oyu know that?"

William Pauwel has posed:
SOMEONE TOTALLY SAID GIANT ROBOTS.

    "Dunno, that's up to whoever built this place," Will answers Yuna, idly adjusting the sleeves on his ~awesome new duds.~ "But places like these, they've usualy got all kinds of traps hidden here and there. Can't have too many more of those littler robots, though. I think we probably took care of most of them!" Probably. Hopefully. It's not really a completely safe bet, given that there were just SO MANY robots. Nozomi knows! She was there. It was pretty awful. He's glad she and her magical mecha tiger are here, though-- for a whole bunch of reasons.

    He glances up at Xiao, then, and blinks. That's an unfamiliar one. Also kind of... Similar to someone else he knows- someone who is actually RIGHT HERE, in fact. "Uhh, am I Person One?" Will asks, canting his head in the universal sign of 'I am so confused. "Those're some pretty fancy boots you got there though. I'm Will Pauwel, nice to meet you!"

    That goes for everyone else Will hasn't actually introduced himself to. Like Gaonoir's little partner, who is trying so hard to get the whole gate in-frame. It's kind of hard, considering it seems like it was built for use by something approximately the size of a small mountain. Will gives the digimon a nod back in greeting- it's been a while since the last time! Hopefully this one won't be as... traumatizing.

    He gives Maaka a wave, too! And then shrugs. "Dunno, she said she wanted to come th--" STOMP. STOMP. Will's hand goes reflexively to his holster-- but relaxes as soon as he realizes what that noise is coming from. "Uh. There she is," Will says, "Howdy, Miss Melchior. Uh. N-no promises about the robot. You never know with these things. Sometimes they just don't take no for an answer."

And sometimes they shoot /death barriers/ at you.

"Well, uh. It looks like we've got a pretty full posse here," Will concludes with a grin, leaping and skidding down the mound of rubble towards the foot of the great gate. "Y'all know how it goes by now, I'm guessin'! Stay close, keep yer eyes open, and if you see somethin' move, it's probably nothin' good. Let's get a move on!"

He's a lot more enthusiastic about this situation than he was about the one on the island.

Maybe it's because he doesn't feel the terrible, creeping dread of NIGHTMARISH CORAL MONSTER.

                             --SCENE TRANSITION--                              

                         --ENTER:=GIANT'S_SEPULCHRE--                          

    The first thing to come to mind is the sheer size of this place. The great gate opens to a massive, man-made cavern. If there is a ceiling, it's so far overhead that it's literally impossible to find through ordinary sight alone. Light pours in through the great gateway, flooding the cavern. Unlike many of the other ruins that the others have visited in this world, this one is /not/ a cyclopean, black expanse that seems to suck in all light. Rather, the only black in this place is a recessed track that leads from the gate, between two slopes of pale, white concrete, towards the heart of the central chamber: an octagonal panel that appears to be flush with the floor, except for a set of cocentric, metal circles at the very middle of the panel. It branches into two perpendicular pathways, then, and streaks off to far walls on either end, and great, steel shutter-gates that still remain closed. Small doors can be seen adjacent to either of the gates, but reaching them means heading up the concrete slopes, first.

More nearby are what appear to be small buildings built into the elevated concrete. A few lights appear to be on, glowing from behind glass windows.

Rumbling in the distance, there is a tell-tale clockwork rumbling, unmistakable for anyone in the know. Those are machine noises- sounds from the activity of enormous engines, or perhaps something more esoteric.

Will tips his hat slightly as he enters. "Well," he breathes, "This is... Pretty big."

Kotone Yamakawa has posed:
Did someone say Giant robots? Well Kotone is more of a /tiny/ robot really a tiny little robot girl who much like Makka can have a gun bigger than she is when she needs to. She seems to be in a good mood as she looks to Will before joining the rest of the party heading out, she intends to keep with Maaka as she foes and she just looks at Will for a moment as they get near the target.

"...Yes you could say it is big William..."

She uses her Matter Maniplator to swap out a heavy rail gun that's about as big as she is, which she has no issue carrying she's got the feleign she's going ot need this today, oh is she ever going to need this today. Though some of the people here she has no experiance with, others? She does take notice of Nozomi deploys a drone to keep up with her, in the event she needs a bit of help.

"Anything else we should know about the target?"

Gaonoir has posed:
"I know, but it's impossible to get her to stop," Gaonoir replies to Kotone with just the faintest of smirks briefly.

Erika finally settles on just getting the upper half of the gate in the view, as that way it at least has some of the mountain around it to help give the impression of how massive it really is. After snapping a few shots she lets the camera hang off her wrist by the strap. "Name's Erika," she replies to Will's brief introduction. "I'm Gaonoir's partner. And an investigator of oddities like this. So this is, like, really something to actually get to see an--"

Gaonoir gives her a nudge to keep her from going off into a ramble again. "Then let's get to actually seeing it, hmmm? And for the love of mods, -stay close-." Last thing he needs his 'pet' human wandering off and getting lost.

"--Oh, right, of course. Onward to the investigation! Mysterious ruins and giant robots!" The sad thing is this ethusiasm is Erika actually trying to keep some amount of composure instead of just entirely geeking out right now.

Starlight Bandits has posed:
    Emilia is practically vibrating with glee as they enter the Giant's Sepulchre. "Finally, finally I can do it everyone..." she is muttering to herself. She's walking alongside Montgomery now, one finger stroking the grip of that grenade launcher in a concerning way.

    Once they're inside, she seems to snap out of it some. That mania ebbs, replaced by a professional gaze as she assesses the surroundings. "Check the buildings first. I remember this one time we didn't, and Dominic..." She suddenly giggles and snorts. "Oh, we were cleaning up for hours~!"

    Well. That's concerning. Either way, she looks among the Elites and says, "Yeah, but for actual? Check the buildings. Meanwhile, I'll take a look at this." She stands over the panel with the concentric circles! "It seems pretty suspicious~"

    And with that, she knees down and starts poking at it with tools extracted from her coat.

Xiao Li Yu (823) has posed:
     Xiao smiled mysteriously at Will at his question. "Person one, Person two, I wonder I wonder..." She didn't actually answer the question. "As for these anklets, they're...nothing special. Just a bit of an aerial aid is all~" She waved a sleeve dismissively as she turned to regard Emilia. ....Immediately, she could sense a kindred spirit.

     That probably wasn't a good thing for everyone else.

     "Oh we'll do everything in our power to keep it as unscathed as possible." She paused and looked at Will. "Well, some of us." Appending her statement, she didn't actually bother to introduce herself. Nope. No, she was just a curious passer by. No need for names. Of course.

     AND INSIDE THEY GO

     "Hrm...big indeed." Xiao mumbled, folding her arms into her sleeves casually. She didn't bother to actually take out any sort of weapon, and proceeded inside as she was. Of course, the researcher does NOT stop to convene with the others. No, she simply wanders off on her own, heading towards the aforementioned buildings.

     "Let's see what they have in here..."

Alexis Maaka (571) has posed:
    "Hey." Maaka greets Erika with the briefest of greetings, but there isn't much time to waste on socializing with this job. As she follows with the others, Maaka begins to take point, switching to night-vision when her helmet folds into place and she shoulders her DLT.

    Advancing through the hangar bay, she tilts her head curiously for a moment, taking in the size of the place. Judging by how this place is, it can only hint at the size of whatever their quarry is today.

Yuna Kagurazaka (385) has posed:
"I'm Yuna," the battlesuited blonde greets those she doesn't know, offering a polite bow in greetings. She's not going to stop Nozomi from hiding behind her; she gives the younger girl a wry smile. "Hopefully we don't need to worry about our allies," she almost-whispers to Nozomi. "Gaonoir's okay; I don't know the Chinese lady, though."

They might not have nightmarish coral monsters to deal with, but Yuna is still kind of ill at ease - and visibly so - as the group continues into the cavern. Does it count as a cavern when it looks this artificial? "It's ... almost like a hangar of some kind, isn't it?" is Yuna's first spoken thought, once the group is inside and she's had a chance to look around. "Elner, are your sensors picking up -" She pauses in mid-sentence, peering towards one of those 'buildings'. "Let me rephrase that: Try to map out active power sources and other functional systems, and see if there's any kind of network up and running? Relay map data to Taiga and Kotone as well, if they'd like it." She's not sure who else can make use of digital map data, so she's not going to volunteer any other names for that purpose.

Elner is still sticking fairly close to Yuna; the rest of the Matrix of Light has already spread out to help with exploration, each heading towards one of the nearby buildings.

Nozomi Houken (342) has posed:
    Well, at least Yuna seems to think /one/ of the scary folks is okay. Nozomi is still sticking close to her, for the moment, but she does at least give the blonde a little nod of agreement.

    Taiga, in the meantime, does his usual thing and moves near the front of the pack, keeping his eyes and ears open. There's nothing really supernatural here, so most of his sensor suite won't do him much good. He still has UV, IR and basic radar, so at the very least he can get a basic idea of what's going on. "The map data would be quite helpful," Taiga says simply. "I am going to perform some recon." His plan for now is to go find high places to stand on; the nearby buildings within the cavern, and any other way-up-there spots that present themselves.

    One thing does finally take her interest enough to pry Nozomi away from Yuna's protection, though; specifically, whatever Emilia is doing. "Do... do you know what that is?" she murmurs, curious.

William Pauwel has posed:
    "Uh, it's giant and it's a robot?" Will offers to Kotonoe. Clearly he's about as in the dark as all the rest of them on the particular nature of their mark. "I heard some of the guys at camp talk about it like it was kind of... Shaped like a drum, sort of. And that it had this one, red eye." Which probably indicates some kind of awful laser beam or something like that. He glances over towards Yuna and gives her a nod, too. "Sort of. I wonder what they needed these things for, though? Giant robots ain't exactly the most... practical things."

Maybe the Ancients just like gratuitously large machines.

Elner's scans get some... interesting readings. The room they're in is actually apparently in some sort of semi-active state; almost as if many of the systems were on standby. Far below, though, there appears to be a truly enormous source of power, throbbing like a beating heart underneath the mountain. Energy flows throughout the structure, terminating irreguarly where circuits are damaged or power has otherwise been cut off, but there are certainly regions where energy seems to be being concentrated.

    Here, though, power seems to be isolated to this particular room. The connections leading to either of the doors on the sides of the chamber seem to have been cut off. Power is naturally flowing to the buildings nearby-- out from the central panel, in fact. There also seems to be more structures in the distance, or rather, more of something that seems to be using electricity.

There does not seem to be a wireless network, though; that was something she would have noticed at the island base, too. Why would anyone build such a massive structure and only use hard-line connections? There do seem to be active terminals near each of the side-doors and inside the lighted buildings.

William Pauwel has posed:
    At the center of the room, Emilia is starting to tinker with the strange, cocentric circles! There seem to be maintenance panels nearby, demarkated by subtle lines separating them from the rest of the black material. The cocentric circles themselves appear to have some give to them- almost as if one could turn the two, with enough force; or if the right controls are found. Symbols decorate the outside of either of the circles, as if they served as some kind of guideline.

The mechanical thrumming seems somewhat louder here, though.

    Meanwhile, the buildings appear to be unattended- there are no noises coming from within; or at least, none that aren't drowned out by the mechanical droning. One of the windows seems to have been blown in, but crawling in through the cracked glass is ultimately unnecessary- the doors are unlocked. They're ajar, in fact; it's like someone forgot to shut them and left the lights on when they left them behind.

    The interior is anything but sparse. The front door leads to a corridor that terminates in what appears to be a solid bulkhead door, one that you might expect to find in a ship or a submarine, rather than a building.

    To left, the corridor turns into something that looks like some kind of mixture between security building and office-space. There is what appears to be an overgrown bonsai in one corner of the room, its branches trimmed with peerless precision by some unknown hand over the many, many years. The rest of the floor is... impeccable. Every single cubicle and every single desk has been perfectly cultivated to be the ideal, ergonomic office.

So much so that it's almost... bizarre to see, in the distance, an abrupt black smear across one of the cubicle walls, further into the room.

William Pauwel has posed:
Taiga's sojourn to ever higher locations is perhaps more fruitful than he expected. The top of the buildings seems to conceal some kind of rudimentary lift- and an adjacent- and relatively easily climbable- enclosed ladder. If he continues further up, he'd find himself face to face with an elaborate network of heavy, steel beams and machines that are unmistakably enormous motors. There's no power flowing up here right now, though. How strange.

But, there, slightly further up there are what appear to be huge, metal /trays/ built into a massive series of racks. Many of them are closed, several are missing, but one appears to be ajar just enough to let someone in to snoop around.

Starlight Bandits has posed:
    "No idea!" Emilia remarks cheerfully to Nozomi as she tries to get a screwdriver in under one of the circles. "That's why I'm trying to get it going. Can you hear the humming? It's louder here. All my experience tells me that the best, most important stuff is where it's loudest!"

    Eventually though, it seems that this... whatever it is, is not manually operated. Emilia throws down her screwdriver into a huff... which clanks against one of the panels, the sound giving it away. Right away, that screwdriver is in her hands again, as she gets to work on prying those open instead.

    And if that doesn't work? She gets Montgomery to rip them open. Hey, what's the point of a big robot if you don't boss it around?

Nozomi Houken (342) has posed:
    Snoop around? Not snoop around?

    Which choice do you bloody well think Taiga's gonna pick?

    Those look like big armament or supply storage racks, and one of them's open enough he can go peeking in. So absolutely yes, he's gonna investigate.

    Nozomi gives what she hopes is an encouraging nod, but mostly she just kind of looks bewildered. "That... that doesn't sound very... scientific," she says, a bit hesitant. But she is at least interested in what's being messed with. "Maybe... maybe you turn the circles, though...?"

Xiao Li Yu (823) has posed:
Xiao proceeds into the buildings, and immediately makes her way towards the office area. Taking a quick glance around from the entrance, she noted the bonsai, as well as the layout of the space. "My, someone was quite meticulous, weren't they?" She chuckled and shook her head as she stepped further in. "Now then, let's see what we can find here." Offices usually had documents, right? Let's have a look see and find out if any interesting records have been left behind...

     She does notice the black smear on one of the cubicle walls looks rather suspect though. While passing by, she leaned closer, observing it first, and then reaching a hand out from her joined sleeves to run a finger across it. Surely nothing terrible would come from contact with an unknown black substance. No way.

Gaonoir has posed:
"Not your typical building interior," Gaonoir murmurs to no one in particularly. They're not being attacked yet (thankfully) so there's not much else for him to offer at the moment. Erika takes out her camera again and starts taking more pictures. It's a terrible expedition if you don't have some sort of documentation, after all. "Do we have any idea about who built this place?" The question is aimed mainly at Will. "It's pretty elaborate for just hiding a bunch of robots in."

Kotone Yamakawa has posed:
Kotone Yamakawa says "It could be worse I guess."

She's now got to worry about the horrible eterrible robotic hell thing. Ot it's a hanger she pauses for a moment as she expands out with the map data that Yuna's partner is giing her. She does seem to keep tabs on Maaka and will open up a conneciton to if she'll allow it. She's not about to just sit down on the job to do and she gets the railgun rifle ready to go. She's going to need it looks like. She's also scanning as well.

"No wireless again?"

Kotone didn't find any when she tehcke and noe she's goin g to go inside and start hunting for a terminal and praying there's no horrible coral level nightmares in here.

Yuna Kagurazaka (385) has posed:
"The Matrix Figure, El-Line, was created so that the Savior of Light could do battle with enemies too large for her to combat on her own," Elner explains to Will. "Perhaps the ancient civilization in this world was also beset by giant monsters of some kind."

"Or maybe they were at war with someone else who used giant robots?" Yuna suggests, thereby adding the other traditional reason why anyone bothers with giant robots in the first place. "Anyway, what're your scans saying, Elner?"

"There's a high-powered energy source deeper down," the robo-faerie reports. "It's likely the main powerplant for this facility; mapping out a route to that sector will take some time. However, there's a wired network running throughout the complex where damage to circuits or systems hasn't interrupted it. Most of this facility is probably still operational; it's most likely a matter of finding control systems and putting them to use."

But not necessarily a simple matter, thinks Yuna, or Elner would've said 'simple'. She still isn't quite sure she trusts Emilia, either. For now, though, she leaves the exploration to her allies and wanders over to where Emilia's working. "So how much do you already know about this place and the giant robot that's here?" she inquires, possibly looking for something she can do to help. Gaonoir's question elicits a nod from Yuna as she adds, "Do you know any history, or mythology, or legends that might shed some light on why the people who built it needed to do so?"

William Pauwel has posed:
    The ancients build their maintenance panels to last! Or rather, they build them to make sure snoopy spies can't get them open so easily. The panel resists Emilia's screwdriver like the world's most stubborn clamshell. It does not, however, object for too long against Montgomery's attempts. The mechanical minotaur reaches over and digs a clawed hand into the panel, the black material cracking and shearing under its assault.

Within is a shiny chrome panel festooned with switches. There's no rhyme nor reason to which way each one is flipped, except for little notes that read anything from 'lights' to 'water pumps' to 'internal security.'

There are a couple of dials down at the bottom of the panel, and a shiny, candy-red button between them.

Can Emilia resist the urge!?

Speaking of feline urges.

    Up above, Taiga has decided to snoop! The tray is... dark. It'd make sense that there'd be no light in here. Fortunately, Taiga is cat, and can presumably either see in the dark, or provide his own light source. What he sees is...

Concerning.

    Row upon row upon row of the same machines they fought outside. The gyrocopters hang like bats from the top of the tray, jam-packed between files of quiescent minotaurs. A single one of these could serve as a small army.

And there were so many trays. Dozens. Hundreds, maybe. What kind of war needed so many soldiers?

Starlight Bandits has posed:
    "Thank you Montgomery~" Emilia says to the big robot as she yanks the panel off. She is about to start poking at what's inside when questions are raised about what happened? "Oh, you hear a lot of theories and tales~" she says to Yuna and Gaonoir.

    "Some say that the Ancients were engaged in some great war, and razed the planet in a single day~ Although, all the stories say that humanity stood together on that day. So whoever they were warring with... it wasn't other humans." And on that ominous note, time to go to work!

    Emilia sees that big red button! Oh boy is she gonna press it! But, she is methodical, first and foremost. The switches have labels, so it's best to find out which position is the 'off' position first.

    So, she fiddles with the 'light' switch first. If that happens to turn off the lights there? Well, she's found which position is 'on' and which is 'off.' Then she makes sure that 'internal security' is well set to 'off!' Next, the moves the dials just a little, to see what they happen to effect. She reasons that it might be the circles, so she tries to line them up based on the symbols.

    And then, if she manages that, or she's wrong? She slams that button!

William Pauwel has posed:
    In the offices, Will shakes his head at Gaonoir's inquiry. "The Ancients built all sorts of things. Some ruins're just big water-holes, like the one underneath my home town. But this doesn't feel like one of those to me," he answers, scratching the tip of his nose. "There ain't nothing that smells safe-like about this place."

    It doesn't take Kotone long to find an active terminal. They're all over the place in here; each cubicle seems to have its own! There're even a few data jacks here and there. Trying to get in might be tricky, though-- to call the security system heavy is a hell of an understatement. There are firewalls upon firewalls, and certainly other security waiting behind them.

    Xiao's initial snooping reveals that most of the documents are... empty. Not that they're blank sheets, but that each and every one of the documents at these cubicles are unfilled. Thousands of forms left untouched. They're all made of some strange, glossy paper though; it's smooth, almost silky to the touch. How strange.

    What isn't silky is that black... /stuff./ It crumbles at Xiao's touch, dissolving to dust. It's ash, unmistakably so. And there's more where it came from. The orderly office terminates abruptly around the ash, which itself stops at a precise line where it meets clean walls, floors and ceiling. Even now, this place smells... scorched. Burnt. But why this place in particular?

The window nearby is shattered. Glass shards are scattered across the floor, encircling a solidly anchored, swivelling chair-- and a burnt, black mass seated in it, hunched over a flickering, half-shattered screen.

A... body?

Nozomi Houken (342) has posed:
    Well. Taiga has seen enough. He's even captured a few images for later. Time to make his way back down to ground level with a series of lazy hops and leaps. "I have discovered a large reserve of the same types of units which swarmed out of this facility previously," he announces as soon as he reaches the ground. His voice is loud enough for everyone to hear, in theory.

    Nozomi is just kind of quietly watching Emilia work now (after the display 'Montgomery' puts on, like heck she's interrupting), though she does listen to the short story on the Ancients with interest.

Gaonoir has posed:
Gaonoir twitchs an ear a bit. "Yeah. Something feels... off about it all."

Erika leans into a cubicle to take a picture of it, then lowers her camera and picks up one of the sheets. "Like they left in a hurry and didn't finish their work." Then she turns the form over. "And this doesn't feel like normal pape--" She yelps as Gaonoir grabs the form away from her. "--Hey!"

"How many times do I have to tell you not to just pick up random things?" Gaonoir mutters back. "How do you know they're not toxic to humans or something?" Aww, it's almost cute that he's actually trying to keep her safe.

Don't say that to his face though.

Xiao Li Yu (823) has posed:
     Wow. Look at all of these unfilled documents. ...LETS TAKE SOME. And so Xiao folds up a reasonable stack of papers and stuffs them into her sleeves, which then vanish into hammerspace. That black stuff though. "Hmm...this is ash." Obviously. Running it through her index finger and thumb, she hmms quietly, and then looked off towards the diving line where it seemed like this place had gotten torched.

     Ah, but the question is why? The researched strode onward, taking sight of the black mass seated in one of the chairs. A body perhaps? She didn't flinch or cringe at all. She stopped right in front of it, and leaned over to have a closer look. "Oh dear, look at this poor person." Xiao had no pity in her voice. She reached out after and poked the body in the chest. Just to make sure!

William Pauwel has posed:
Emilia proves her skill as a handyman. As she flicks the 'light' switch, the world suddenly floods with artificial illumination. Panels on the walls flicker to life in sequence. Rings of light rise into the ceiling, terminating around what appear to be an enormous, mechanized network of cranes, hydraulic pistons, iron clamps and metal arms tipped with all kinds of strange attachments. The assembly is... quiescent at the moment, though.

This is probably good.

    The 'Internal Security' switch is flicked, and something somewhere makes a solid *click*-ing noise. The two dials do indeed control the central circles; Emilia turns them until the two circles align. The middle of the platform seems to rise slightly, then- a pressure plate?

But...

Then... and then--

THE BUTTON

EMILIA SMASHES THE BUTTON.

    A dull, bassy noise rumbles through the room. Power shoots over towards one of the side doors as, up above, the massive assembly of machinery begins whirling into motion. Steam hisses as one of the enormous doors at the far sides of the room begins to open.

Out rolls...

An... enormous set of tank treads?

But the cranes are moving towards it, reaching out for the giant tracks. One slams a heavy, boxy chassis on top of them. Another sweeps down and begins building up, assembling mechanism after mechanism until the lower half of a torso begins to take shape.

WHAT DO

William Pauwel has posed:
    Inside the office, Xiao has STOLEN FROM THE WORKPLACE. What a horrible person, this Xiao Li Yu. So horrible that she'd go and poke a dead body. The torso is unresponsive, but as she disturbs it, its arms seem to loosen at the shoulders, and one swings down--

Something clatters to the floor out of the body's grasp. It's... A picture frame? The back has been knocked ajar.

Starlight Bandits has posed:
    IT BEGINS.
    As the place rumbles to life, Emilia regards everything like a kid in a candy store. The treads, the body... "It's an assembly line..." she whispers with awe as a robot is built up before her eyes. "AN AUTOMATED ASSEMBLY LINE! YESSSSSSSSSSSSS!"

    Immediately, she's giving hugs to everyone in reach. Yuna, Gaonoir, Montgomery... "Do you know what I could do with this?! I could... I could do anything! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!" She dances on the spot, face split into an enormous grin. "And this is just the tip of the iceberg! If we have this AND the giant robot? Nothing can stand before us!"

    But, she hasn't forgotten that something else became available to press during her fiddling. That pressure plate? She stamps down on it with her foot!

Nozomi Houken (342) has posed:
    Nozomi Houken is within reach.

    For the entirety of The Hug, she looks exceptionally startled, and even in the aftermath she looks like a deer in headlights.

    Taiga chooses this moment to amble up, and declare simply, "What will you do if the assembled machine realizes that we are not its authorized users and decides this is a breach of security that needs to be addressed as permanently as possible?"

Gaonoir has posed:
Gaonoir and Erika both stop to look up as the place starts to rubble to life. Leaving the poor digimon to get blindsided by a hug happy Emilia. Much pathetic flailing endures as his fuzzy dog-like form is embraces. "WHY DO PEOPLE KEEP DOING THIS?!" He still has issues with being considered 'cute'.

Kotone Yamakawa has posed:
Kotone Yamakawa is able to get to a terminal pretty quick she jacks in but whsitles at the level of security here and hse's going to look for low sec information or unsecureed data anything that might tell her more about the palce but she doens't like to well mess with thing too damn hard she doesn't want to set off defence systems after all.

Xiao Li Yu (823) has posed:
Xiao glances out a nearby window as THINGS START HAPPENING. "Oh my." That gate opened. And those are tank treads. Annnnd that is a mechanical base. ...Annnnnnnd that's starting to look an awful lot like a body. "............Fascinating." She didn't even consider that this could threaten her life. God damn it, Xiao!

     A clatter of an object hitting the floor draws her attention back to the body before her, and she kneels down to observe. "Hmm? This is..." A picture frame? She reaches down and picks it up, turning it over to look into the frame, before turning it to the back to take a look at that end as well, opening it more. "What could be in here? How curious..."

     She'd leave the TANK BUILDING to the others.

William Pauwel has posed:
SOMEBODY STOP THAT CRAZY WOMAN

Preferably before she accidentally trips the self-destruct or something.

    The factory continues its terrible work. The torso is complete, a barrel-chested, sturdy thing. Two enormous, multi-barreled turrets are mounted to its back. One fully assembled arm is dropped into its shoulder, tipped with no less than /five/ drill-like bits. Its other limb is mounted next, fastening a much more conventional arm into place. The head slowly lowers as it begins to roll forward.

And then Emilia hits the pressure plate.

    The cocentric rings recess into the floor with a hydraulic hiss. The enormous octagonal platform begins to disengage from the surrounding concrete construction, one panel at a time slide inward like a collapsing fan. The rings spin as the thing begins descending...

An elevator!?

Yuna Kagurazaka (385) has posed:
An automated assembly line for .... if not 'giant robots' per se, then at least robot-esque tanks.

Yuna has a distinctly unhappy look on her face now as she eyes the machine being pieced together by the cranes and other machinery - or maybe it's Emilia's glee in having control of the manufacturing plant that has her worried. Even getting hugged doesn't dislodge her growing concern, apparently. Taiga's question is an awfully good one, really.

And there are some other questions converging in the back of her mind as well. She still isn't sure what Emilia really WANTS to do with either one giant robot, or an army of them, but 'Nothing can stand before us' isn't really the kind of emotion she wants to hear from another good guy.

Yuna is very quiet for a few moments, at least outwardly. She's not sure if Emilia's on the Chaser frequency so she can't pose her concerns to the others through *that* route, and in case Taiga's right and the robots are going to determine that the party are enemies to be eliminated, she doesnt' want to send the rest of the Matrix of Light running around the complex looking for a route to the powerplant down below. While she's thinking, the tankbot is more or less finished - yep, that's definitely a machine of war - and Emilia's stomp on the pressure plate causes the platform to start going down.

- and Yuna's stomach decides the elevator's not going down fast enough, or at least that's the feeling she gets. "Elner!" she calls out; the robo-faerie flits right back to Yuna's side, and in the next handful of seconds, Jiina, Marina, and Erina zip over from their respective reconnaissances to form ranks around Yuna, evne if they have to fly down the hole where the platform started to do so.

"So, uh, Emilia ..." Yuna's smile is kind of strained, and she knows it, but she smiles anyway. "You didn't mention who you think might try to stand in your way, or why. I hate to ask this, but ... um. Were you planning to, oh ... try to conquer this planet, or anything ... ? It just seems like the kind of thing some of us would like to know ..."

Yeah, there had to have been a better way to ask that, but she's not coming up with anything.

Gaonoir has posed:
Okay, once the HORRIBLE HUGGING is over with we can get back on track here. Which appears like the place has been started back up again? Oh, wonderful. Now it's building a robot or something. "Kind of reminds me of a giant ass Tankdramon," Gaonoir mutters, even as an elevator is turned on. And now lowering. Towards the factory and -that- thing? Even more wonderful. "Erika, be ready. If it turns into a fight, digivolve me and then get somewhere... uh..." He looks at the constructing robot again. "... I'd say safe, but that may be specifically pointless of a detail in here."

"Besides, if I hide I can't take any pictures of you fighting to prove any of this even happened in the first place, Erika replies, even as she's fetching her digivice from her satchel.

"You have weird priorities, girl."

William Pauwel has posed:
Meanwhile, Xiao, being a terrible person, completely ignores the impending doom implied by the tank-mech being swiftly assembled. The picture in the frame depicts a scruffy-faced man in a smart, well-decorated navy-blue uniform... And a beautiful, dusky-skinned woman, cradling a swaddled child. A picture of family, it seems. The edges are scorched and blackened, but the image still remains.

    The back pane comes away when prodded, revealing a slightly thick, card-shaped object with a what appears to be a strip of brassy material across one face. There's also a small, red gem flush against the middle of the card. It's pretty fancy, really.

The ruby-like crystal pulses softly. How strange.

Meanwhile, Kotone would be able to find a number of miscellaneous messages. Missives on part deliveries and reports on distant bases... And maps, with an ever-approaching red line, creeping slowly towards the base.

Another document, a date-- with orders for an evacuation.

A third: an official message, and the final one sent to this terminal. Complete evacuation is impossible. Critical personnel will remain to hold position until purification unit 'CODE J' has been completed.

The message is signed 'Central Directive Unit - V'

Starlight Bandits has posed:
    Looking to the robot tiger (who is also very cool, she things), Emilia offers a smile. "I already disabled the internal security from that panel~ Besides, no one would set up an assembly line where the robots turn on once they're done. If one wasn't put together properly, it could be catastrophic! I think we'll be fine~"

    But then, they begin to descend! Quickly, she cups her hands and yells down the other pathways. "WE GOT AN ELEVATOR WORKING! I'LL SEND IT BACK UP, JUST STAND ON THE PLATE TO FOLLOW US!" Quite a pair of lungs on her.

    But, Yuna has some questions! Quite reasonable questions too, but Emilia doesn't seem to think so, based on how she giggles. "Take over the world? Nothing so grandiose, silly~ No, I just want revenge... oh, but not against people! Against the monsters who wiped out my last Legion!" She taps her patch, the one that has an extra 'I' appended on the end. "I was the only survivor. Damn ferrets..."

Yuna Kagurazaka (385) has posed:
"Ohhhhh," Yuna nods. NOW she looks somewhat relieved. (Maybe only somewhat, but ... that's still a step up from where she was a moment ago.)

"... wait, what kind of ferrets wiped out your Legion? Or was it more than one Legion you lost to them?"

Elner just looks like, if this were anime, maybe an OVA or something, there'd be a big ol' sweatdrop adorning the back of the robo-faerie's head.

Nozomi Houken (342) has posed:
    The elevator is going down. Right under Nozomi.

    Nozomi is now hiding behind Yuna again. Taiga is, at the very least, tense. He's on his guard, because they have no idea where they're descending to or what might be down there when the elevator stops. "I once had to deal with something similar to a ferret in some ways. Kama-itachi can be rather vicious when angered. I cannot say that I blame her."

Xiao Li Yu (823) has posed:
     Aw, how cute. This charred husk of a man had a family.

     Moving along.

     She opened the picture frame and took out the card-like object that was wedged behind the back pane. "Hmm..." She turned it over, taking note of the brass strip and the gem inset. "Some manner of keycard?" The pulse going through the gem is rather ominous.

     Oh well!

     This can probably be used somewhere else, no? Well. maybe she'll be able to make use of it. Standing up at that, Xiao left the office...through the window, and pocketed the keycard as she made her way off towards the lowering elevator. While The distance wasn't particularly a probably, even if it was getting away from her. She just hopped over the edge and sailed downwards, her descent slowing until she landed with a soft tap.

     "Hello people~" Smiling the girl waved a sleeve. She didn't say what she found just yet. She'd satisfy her curiosity herself!

Yuna Kagurazaka (385) has posed:
Yuna reaches back to give Nozomi's hand a gentle squeeze ... if she can find the girl's hand, anyway. She's willing to be Nozomi's shield and bulwark against the scary people either way, though - that *IS* what Yuna sees as the big part of her job.

Kotone Yamakawa has posed:
Kotone Yamakawa downloads all the files she cna but this now paint a story to her she can come back maybe bringing Rory and others if needed to help with getting into the files here but she gets it something was moving towards the base. A evac was called but a final messge was left they were going to hold it till they finished what they were working on.

<<Ko here, I found some data in the network looks like they were trying to ifnish something calle d purifiction unit with Code J....>>

She'll then start moving to catch up with the otehrs she will start digging into the files later however but now isn't the time right? She might trip some defence system after all.

William Pauwel has posed:
You'd think that the ancients would make sure that their giant tank robot assembly line wouldn't activate the aforementioned machine immediately after it was done building.

But then, you'd think that they'd also put a better seal on their suspicious mind-control coral samples. And that they wouldn't let terrible nanoweapons lurk in underground residential blocks.

This one... Actually appears well designed, though. The machine rolls off as it completes, ferrying from one massive door to the next just as another set of treads enters the room. Will stares after the enormous frame of the tank-robot as it vanishes, "That... I can't help but feel like we ain't seen the last of those fellas."

But, he's got an elevator to catch! Will forces his hat down onto his head and sprints on after Kotone and Xiao. He leaps boldly down the elevator shaft!! And... Actually sticks a pretty good landing, and only kind of hurts his knees when he lands.

"Ferrets ain't nothin' to fool around with," Will says with a frown. "Almost as bad as turkeys, I reckon."

(Ferrets don't have ossifying venom-breath)

    The elevator is actually quite large. Big enough to fit a building on, in fact. The shaft it's attached to is deep. It just keeps going. And going. Down, down, down into the dark, lightless earth- it seems the switch Emilia flipped only turned on the assembly line lights. Finally, it comes to rest with a soft click and the hiss of hydraulics locks sliding into place. Those mechnaical noises are even louder here- almost deafening. And yet, it's... cold. Chill, almost. Like someone was running a massive air conditioner and left the dial turned way down low.

Will frowns, staring off into the darkness. His hands grope for the weapon at his hip. Solano's barrel ignites with a crack of coruscating electricity.

Something, somewhere, makes a sound like distant thunder.

    One set of lights click on. Then another, then another. The world comes into being, and all around them is ruin. Enormous, humanoid husks crumble slowly to dust. Countless empty frames, hundreds of different designs, each one lying lifeless on top of one another in a seemingly bottomless expanse. There are so many- enough that the most recent additions are piled so high that they loom precariously over the explorers, flanking them from all sides but one. A single raised walkway leads away from them, towards a colossal door at the far end of the hall, flanked by a multitude of broken giants.

Starlight Bandits has posed:
    Emilia seems to pointedly ignore Yuna's follow-up question as the others jump down! "Nice of you to drop in~" Emilia says to those who jump down onto the descending platform. She then snorts and suppresses a giggle, giving the joke far too much credit.

    It's a long way down, so the mad adventurer leans against Montgomery, humming a listless tune to pass the time. "See, he gets it. Those things will skin you alive and wear you!" she says, her voice suddenly filled with venom. She's clearly trying to play it cool, but her tapping foot and fingers betray her impatience. This is a girl who wants her giant robot, and she wants it now!

    The darkness that envelops them upon arrival only slows her for a moment. "Montgomery, give us so-oh, never mind~" Thankfully, the place lights up, rendering her request needless. Probably a good thing too, god only knows what she loaded that thing up with.

    She looks around at the empty husks, her grin only getting bigger. "These must be prototypes or something. How wonderful~ That means the one still here is a final version!" She sprints towards the giant doors, the robotic minotaur lumbering after her.

Xiao Li Yu (823) has posed:
     As they arrive down to the next area, Xiao blinks as the lights come on one after the other. She still doesn't have any weapons drawn. Instead her arms are folded back into her sleeves. "Oh my, look at all of these remains." She intoned in a passive, observational manner as she proceeded down the walkway. "It certainly makes one wonder just what sort of event took place here, no?"

     If they have time, she'll definitely be returning to study these! But for now? She heads directly for the gate, and once she gets there, she pokes around for any sort of scanner or slot or something for a key(card). Certainly, that one she found earlier must be used for this, right? Right?

Gaonoir has posed:
"What did the elevator bring us down to, a funeral parlor?" True to form Erika just starts asking more questions instead of being weirded out too much by the sight they're introduced to. "They -are- dead, right? Hopefully." Okay, maybe a little creeped out, but she just squeezes the digivice a little tighter in her hands for reassurance.

"Stinks like it," Gaonoir retorts. He's even less phased by the sight, though it's debatable if he can actually smell death down here or is just being a smart ass about it. "I guess, follow the slightly more crazy girl and her robo-bull."

Erika raises a brow behind her glasses, as if to silently ask 'slightly more'? Was Gaonoir comparing Emilia to her?... Granted, being called the less crazy in that regard might be a compliment.

Yuna Kagurazaka (385) has posed:
The lights in the massive underground chamber come on without anyone having to go and flip a switch or anything. That could be a good thing. Yuna just looks worried again. "Nozomi, I think I need to go after her," she says apologetically. "Assuming I don't need El-Line, I'll make sure at least Marina stays with you. Okay?"

The orange-and-white member of Yuna's mechanical retinue bows politely to Nozomi. "I'll do my utmost to keep you safe from harm while we're here," the vaguely feminine-looking robot/android/whatever says, even as Yuna steps away and combines with Erina. Once she's in her Flight Form, Yuna takes to the air, zipping across towards the far end of the walkway, the Matrix Divider materializing in her hands - mostly for an independent light source, one that isn't part of the power grid in the ancient installation, rather than out of any anticipation of combat.

Nozomi Houken (342) has posed:
    Surprisingly enough, Nozomi is willing to keep up with the rest of the group, though she stays near the back. She seems somewhat reassured by Marina, though.

    Taiga once again moves up near the front in case of hostile machinery (which is rather likely, given past history with all the advanced tech in this world).

William Pauwel has posed:
When buried, the dead are supposed to lay, sleeping forever beneath the earth. But as they pass, deep in the darkness, red eyes flicker to life. With each step, more lights flare to life. Heads creak on ancient servos, staring helplessly at these visitors. These tomb robbers.

The door at the far end waits. A small podium is raised before the enormous set of double-doors-- a control panel, it seems. There's a slot there, waiting for something to be placed within.

    "This is feelin' familiar somehow," Will murmurs, stowing his gun back into its holster. He glances back at the broken giants, and those which have turned to stare after them. "You don't suppose there's some awful black mess back in there, do you?"

Starlight Bandits has posed:
    One can practically see Emilia deflate at the sight of the podium with the slot. "... I don't suppose anyone found anything that would fit? Or brought a ton of explosives?" she asks in a pleading voice.

Xiao Li Yu (823) has posed:
Xiao observed as the podium came up, and then smirked. "Ah. Well, would you look at that." She didn't even need to look twice. She strode on over and took out a certain keycard from her lab coat's pocket, twirling it between her fingers as she passed by Emilia. "As it turns out..."

     She slotted the card in, brass strip first, and then pressed down. "...I did happen to find something like that~"

     NOW. OPEN SESAME!

Kotone Yamakawa has posed:
Kotone Yamakawa is able to catch up and she leaps after Will and she'll land down in a three pioint landing though she might /damage/ the ground from the force of that much mass hitting it at speed she di but she rises up thankfully and is ready to go but she's moving along with WIll on a bit edge onw but she moves laong as she sets her self to low light mode to see but tht doesn't last lng as the lights come on and she /stares/.

"Christ ... what is this?!"

Nozomi Houken (342) has posed:
    By the time the group reaches that podium before a set of doors, Nozomi is visibly quivering. Ohh this place is gonna give her nightmares for a while. There's no doubt about that. Even taiga is a bit more tense. "If there is," he replies to Will, "At least this time we will know what to expect."

    That probably explains why his cannons are both trained on the doors.

William Pauwel has posed:
    Xiao inserts the key. The inlaid crystal flashes once, twice, then finally BLAZES with light. The great gate shudders as the command is given; an order: to open wide. The air churns as the door hinges open, sweeping inward to allow passage...

To an even deeper hangar.

But this one is not empty.

    Hardly so, in fact. A pair of massive elevators churn at the back of the room, lowering... familiar tank-mechs down into the chamber. They roll studiously into formation, lining either side of the hangar in single file.



    But, between them is a throne that make them seem like childrens' toys. Upon it rests a giant beyond giants, an enormous figure, built more like a skyscraper than a machine. A single eye glows out like a lighthouse from far, far above.

That...

That appears to be the rumored giant.

    It stirs as the door opens. The ground beneath their feet trembles as it moves, its weight shifting onto its legs. Standing, it seems even greater than before.

A colossus.

A king among giants.

William Pauwel has posed:
WHEN WE LAST LEFT OUR HEROES AND THEIR MAD SCIENCTISTS

The party made their way into what looked to be some kind of enormous underground vault in search of a giant robot to capture. Built into a hollowed out mountain, the Sepulchre of the Giants turned out to be some kind of mixture of (gigantic) robotics factory and disposal zone.

They also found out that it was on the verge of being overrun by... something. Until the completion of what was called 'Purification Unit: CODE J,' that is. After that, the trail seemed to stop dead cold.

But something that DIDN'T go cold was the trail that led them here.

To the throne of a colossus among colossi. A mechanical giant who even now is rising to its full height.

It's flanked by FAMILIAR TANK MECHA who are continuously rolling down from above via a pair of elevator shafts at the back of the room.

WHAT DO

Yuna Kagurazaka (385) has posed:
Yuna looks up at the mechanical colossus, briefly trying to remember if she's seen anything else *that* big. It's certainly an order of magnitude or so bigger than El-Line; the scale of it reminds her a lot more of the Chaos Titan that the Noise Marines brought --

And that's a memory she does *NOT* want to entertain, ever, but especially not now. The battle was traumatic enough when it was in her present and in her recent past; she's fought back against the nightmares it left her with and regained the ability to sleep through the night, with no small difficulty getting there. "Elner," she calls out, "do a deep scan, is there ANYTHING alive inside that - ?!"

There may be more of a squeak in her voice than she wanted there to be. (See, Nozomi? Yuna gets frightened too.)

The robo-faerie looks at Yuna, just for a fraction of a second, then begins the requested sensor scan: very thorough, actively trying to detect any kind of life signs through whatever interference may come from layers of armor or as a side effect of powered-up internal systems. Of course, the way Yuna framed the inquiry, it's just as likely that Elner will try to identify mechanical life-signs (e.g. Cybertronian) as conventional organic .... but either way, Yuna asked - and she really does want, or rather need, to know, before any kind of fight has a chance to break out. Erina and Jiina are moving to rendezvous with Yuna now; Marina hesitates, staying near Nozomi for the moment.

Xiao Li Yu (823) has posed:
"Ooooooohhhh....!"

     Xiao intones with unrestrained wonder, staring up at the giant metal KING OF ROBOTS. So what does she do? Her anklets flare to life, and she rises riiiiiiiight up into the air, ascending...ascending....ascending... All the way up until she's floating at the giant's eye level.

     "Hi~" She waves a sleeve cutely, smiling all the while. "You don't mind if I take a few samples from you and the surroundings, right? I simply must know what makes everything here tick!" And she asks the giant robot like this is all some kind of casual get together.

     Xiao please. Now is not the time for science.

Alexis Maaka (571) has posed:
    "Ohhhh boy."

    Maaka stares up at the massive mecha, gaping behind her mask as she takes in how BIG it is. It makes anything her world has made look like an RC Car sold by a shitty hobby store. To say the least, it's a miracle the mech's intact despite the facility's abandonment.

    She's jarred from her thoughts by the sounds of rolling tanks, the mechanized vehicles giving Maaka reason to draw her repeating blaster. Shouldering the massive automatic, she whistles sharply at the others to get their attention, "Guys, I think they're not taking visitors..." She says.

Starlight Bandits has posed:
    Emilia has reached a state of giddiness that would make a schoolgirl seem serious by comparison. "Oh, it must be... quite... oooohhhh I'm so excited I can't even do math!" She is actually hopping from foot to foot, looking around the room and noticing the tank mecha whose assembly line she had activated upstairs.

    "So, this must be some kind of deployment room or testing area..." Her gaze is still upon the giant, eyes dazzled behind her glasses. But her hand still drops to grasp that grenade launcher in her belt.

Gaonoir has posed:
"That is the second biggest monstrousity I have seen in a long time." That's not sarcasm, either, considering it's still said with a fair amount of awe. But considering how big some Digimon get in their alternate forms, Gaonoir probably isn't exaggerating, either. Ears slick back tensely as he clenches his gloved paws a few times. "Do it, Erika. Then stay back so you don't get overrun.

Erika flicked her thumb across the touchscreen to fully activate her digivice then looked to Gaonoir again. "You sure? Usually you want to see what you're up against first."

"Trust me. After what we saw last time? There's no pulling punches." With that said the digimon sprints away from her, taking a few steps to get closer to the front of the group before leaping into the air to make sure he has room.

"Right, then." Erika nudges her glasses up with two fingers, then turns and holds the D-Port up in her other hand. "Digivice, Initiate!" Dramatically pressing her thumb to the activator on the screen.

Just as she does and he's leaping into the air the charge in the area engulfs Gaonoir, surrounding him in a brief corona of purple and black digital energies. "Gaomon.... WARP DIGIVOLVE!" Beneath the shroud the digimon's literal essense is stripped down to the code and then reformed, expanding his body as power levels rise, then filling it back in not only with the digital code energies, but with the Dark Digitron infused within his very core surging out and wrapping over to manifest itself into fully formed physical armor. And then the caccoon-like aura shatters into scattering motes as the now towering Knight-like form drops out of it, giving his flowing cape of shadows a dramatic flare behind him. The other arm comes up front of himself with the half-twist, held at an angle as light briefly sheens across the broad vambraces and then the battle claws of glowing darkness extend from the wrist of it. "UMBRA GAOGAMON!"

Nozomi Houken (342) has posed:
    If there's one thing that perpetually throwing herself into the jaws of danger and experiencing mortal terror has taught Nozomi, it's 'survival instincts'. Seeing the immense robot beginning to rise up, she glances briefly at Taiga and bites her lip; the robotic tiger nods faintly, and then leaps into the fray, while Nozomi herself starts looking around. Quick, almost frantic scanning, looking for somewhere she can take cover. Marina probably gets a look that says 'please stay with me'.

    Meanwhile, the robotiger is in 'full speed ahead' mode. He goes straight in towards the nearest treadbot, darting from side to side as he scampers with as much agility as he can muster. His cannons track and begin opening fire as he runs, but his real aim is to get in close. If he can break the treads on one and wreck its mobility, he can make it harder for others to roll off the assembly line, possibly backing it up and saving them some hassle.

Kotone Yamakawa has posed:
Kotone Yamakawa look at the giant now and she looks at the thing for a moment the tank mecha show up and the likel Code J is before them iut's huge she was not expecting something bit. She doe howrver cloak at the sight of them and tries to get to cover as she sends a signal to maaka

<<I wonder if I can jack into them?>>

She's slinking about as she looks to try and get closer and she'll check for any wireless access points on the huge robots or is she going to have to climb up and get on the machines personally.

William Pauwel has posed:
XIAO PLEASE THIS IS NOT THE TIME FOR SCIENCE.

    Yuna's scans would reveal something simultanously reassuring and... disconcerting. The machine appears to be completely and utterly... mechanical. Its outer shell is utterly devoid of any higher order lifeform more complex than bacteria. Though that may just be because its inner workings are shielded by what appear to be layers of heavy metal alloys and ceramic metamaterials. Penetrative radiation is siphoned into the outer layer of the colossus' armor like water into parched earth.

But Elner's scans aren't reliant on ordinary radiation.

    The machine /is/ fundamentally nothing more than a complex arrangement of high-end robotics and materials technologies. At its heart thrums what appears to be a fusion furnace. Its brain crackles with enough computing power that it almost certainly contains some manner of electronic intelligence. But there's something else, too-- a strange connection riding out of the machine on a quantum current that leads... somewhere. It's impossible to say exactly where- as one might expect from a connection like that.

    The King of Robots regards Xiao with a gaze that is... disdainful, if that's something at all possible. It stares down, past her, as the party begins to mobilize. A voice rolls out like thunder. "Who are you to disturb this place? This tomb must remain sacrosanct!"

And then Taiga begins opening fire, shredding one of the tank-robot's treads before it can even begin to roll off the elevator platform. Blossoms of light bloom between the ranks of what machines ARE already present and active.

    All at once, a sea of green eyes turn blood red. The King's voice bellows out in a low, keening rumble. "Tomb robbers! Vandals!" It raises its hands, two spheres built into its palms glow with golden light. "Begone from this place! So says the keeper, the protector!"

                =============GARGANTUAN GUARDIAN============                
                ::::::::::::::::::CORE-UNIT:::::::::::::::::                
                =================CODE: JOTUN================                

    The spheres on its hands blaze even brighter. Arcing rays of light begin pouring out from its palms, curving impossibly through the air to come down in-between the party's formation, whereupon the beams would bloom into domes of rapidly ionizing plasma! The mecha-tanks begin advancing as well, the heavy autocannons on their shoulders beginning to spool up, but it seems it'll take a moment for them to fire.

    MEANWHILE, William Pauwel is cursing his awful luck and has run over to try and SCOOP UP Nozomi! "Miss Nozomi! Y'all hold on!" he says, wheels on his boots engaging. "I'll keep you outta harm's way best I can!" But how long can he dodge HOMING, SCATTER-SHOT PLASMA BLASTS!?

Alexis Maaka (571) has posed:
    "GodDAMN IT!" Maaka is almost about to make a break towards Nozomi, to get her out of the line of fire before William opts to do that himself. With him handling things, Maaka's freed up to handle the tanks.

    She fires upon one of the tanks, running to make herself as hard a target to hit with her DLT blazing away on auto. Her shots are fired from the hip, with one hand gripping the heavy blaster while her other pops a chaff grenade. It's harmless to her at a distance, but it might play hell with the targeting systems of the tanks. She tosses the grenade towards the treads of one tank, firing upon it immediately after like Rambo would've.

    She also wonders who the hell would design tanks like these. With those arms and treads together they look downright comical, either be a robot, or be an automated tank, they don't go well together.

Starlight Bandits has posed:
    Nooooo, this wasn't how it was supposed to go...! Emilia and the giant robot were supposed to be best buddies and wipe out the weasels together! She actually feels a little betrayed now. But, that's okay. It's a machine, she can MAKE it be her best friend.

    But first, to deal with the tanks. "Sic 'em Montgomery!" she yells at her minotauric companion. Immediately, its eyes shift to red as combat mode is engaged! It rushes one of the tank mechs and starts to grapple with its turret! Emilia meanwhile, is searching for any kind of terminal or input for the colossus. Blasting any tanks that look at her funny with that grenade launcher.

    She seems quite calm, in spite of the plasma.

Yuna Kagurazaka (385) has posed:
            "LIIIIIIIIIIIIIIGHT *UP*!!! EL-LINE!!"

The chamber is more than big enough for Yuna to summon the Matrix Figure, and as the Gargantuan Guardian declares its warning and starts charging up to fire, Yuna decides that she needs to take advantage of that. Will is already protecting Nozomi himself, which in turn frees up Marina of the Sea to join her 'sister' units - and just in the nick of time: a pillar of light blossoms into existence around Yuna and the Matrix of Light, their forms fading from view within the column of radiant power. A handful of seconds later, the pillar begins to fade as the sleek, gleaming form of El-Line materializes from within it - armored in white, blue, and gold, its shape and colors echoing the curves and panels of Yuna's own Light Suit. Or perhaps the resemblance is supposed to go the other way ...

Either way, Yuna's next word after the Matrix Figure's summoning is a simple, "SHUGOSEIHEKI!!" as she invokes her shield, the Wall of the Guardian Star. The kite shield - now proportionally scaled up to El-Line's own size - flares into existence on El-Line's left arm, and Yuna does her best to catch as much of the incoming fire on that shield as she can. On the downside, that's enough incoming firepower that even Shugoseiheki won't hold up underneath the bombardment forever; there are already little arcs and crackles of overload arcing along the super robot's left arm, akin to the way the Light Suit's protective aura flares when it takes potentially-damaging hits.

Still, Yuna's not forced totally onto the defensive; El-Line's right arm comes up, and as she calls out, "LIGHTNING SHOOT!!" she tries to blast some of the Gargantuan Guardian's beam-cannons with crackling bolts of her own. Not actually lightning - more like concussive blasts of photonic force - but they look enough like 'lightning,' combined with the attack's name, that it's an easy mistake to make.

Gaonoir has posed:
No surprise the boss woke up on the cranky side of the bed.

As energy beams sweep through the chamber Gaonoir holds up his arms in front of himself and plants a foot back for bracing, essentially turning the two broad vambraces into one really big shield. A plasma beam sweeps across the surface and detonates, energy billowing out as the force flaps Gaonoir's cape behind him. But the Beast Knight's guard is hopefully enough to give Will the time to grab Nozomi with the cover. It definately gives Erika enough time to scramble back for the far end of the chamber. She's gotten rather good at running -away- from the intense danger after becoming a Tamer.

The explosion doesn't do much more at this point than leave some burn marks that are hard to see on the already dark material of Gaonoir's armor. And some smoke sizzling off them as he lowers his arms back to his sides. "That is a miserable way to say hello, by the way," he snarks. Then leaps into the air again. The blades extended from his arms start to glow with dark miasma as he launchs and then whirls around, launching the energy into a shower of crescent shaped energy blades with two swings of his arms. "Umbra Cutter!" However he's aiming not at the tank-robots, but at the machinery delivering them into the chamber, trying to disable or at least slow it down.

Xiao Li Yu (823) has posed:
Aw.

     It was angry. Bringing a sleeve to her mouth, an outline of a finger pressing lightly to her lip, Xiao mumbled. "So I guess that's a no?" Green turns to red, and she blinks. "Oh dear." YEP THAT WAS A NO. The researcher immediately cut the power to her AANS, falling out of the air and tucking this way and that to avoid sudden PLASMA FIRE.

     Yuna's summoning of a comparatively giant robot is met with a momentary 'ooooh!', but there were more important things to worry about right now. Like not dying. Can't science when you're dead after all. Well it was most appropriate for a giant robot to handle another giant robot, so--! Xiao focused on the tanks building up energy to fire at them.

     She still didn't take out any weapons. Instead, she just smiled and muttered under her breath. "Thundaga." Her body immediately flared to life with electricity, and finally, she brought an arm out of a sleeve, revealing a black metal gauntlet with a gem in the palm. Quite similar to our giant robot friend here. She pointed it at one of the tanks, power channeling to her palm.

     And upon landing, she fired, letting loose a beam of lightning from her palm, aiming to disrupt it's machinery with a surge of electricity. Do these things run on that? We'll find out!

Nozomi Houken (342) has posed:
    Before Nozomi can actually dive for a hiding spot, someone scoops her up, earning a startled yelp. "Aaah-!" It's something of a chore holding on for dear life. But she does it anyway. Hanging on tight while her rocket-booted savior goes darting and dodging, and- and the robot roars a condemnation. Something in those words gets through to her, even through the haze of mortal terror. There might be something of a peculiar look in her eye for a moment.

    Taiga, meanwhile, is leaping and darting as fast as he can, playing his agility to the hilt to keep the robots busy. Those autocannons draw enough attention for him to open fire specifically on those armaments, trying to disable what he can before they open fire. He comes away from one blast of plasma scorched - but still intact, and preparing to circle around to try and flank the tankbots-

    "Taiga!"

    That was Nozomi. Calling out. It /immediately/ stalls the robotiger's movements. "Nozomi?" Her yells come out somewhat shaky, but the fact she's doing it at all is impressive. "Taiga, come here...!" She adds in a quieter voice to Will, "Take me to Taiga, I... I-I have to... there's something I need to do. I can't... I can't stand this anymore..."

Kotone Yamakawa has posed:
Kotone Yamakawa gets an idea about the ranks she knows she can't get the main event sure but the tanks might be jackable and recoveirng one would be a hell of a hall in and of itself right? Aslo something less shooting at the party is always a good thing right? She'll spring but that might exposse her she'll then leap from the groun trying to get on to the tank she'll use her body's full power to try to clamp into place and climb up now the trick is to find an access point before something blows her to bits.

William Pauwel has posed:
    Unfortunately for Emilia, the path to the GIANT ROBOT is a little more perilous than she might have preferred. Of course, that doesn't mean she doesn't manage to make her way in, especially with her own minotaur lending its aid AND the firepower being brought to bear here today. Grenades and gunfire and magical mechatiger blasts tear into the hordes of identical (AND COMPLETELY PRACTICAL, THANK YOU) Tank-Mechs, blasting their weapons to bits and blowing off limbs or shattering treads. The Jotun is within sprinting distance now, though how does Emilia plan to SCALE IT!?

    Kotone manages to mount one of the mecha-tanks and finds a maintenance panel built into the nape of its neck-- but she also finds herself being targeted by other nearby units. They open fire, unleashing a punishing barrage of high-calibur munitions at Kotone and the party alike. The rounds don't just penetrate, though-- they explode when they get close! EXPLODING GIANT MINIGUNS!!

    Xiao's lightning courses through dozens. Thundaga's raw magical power seems to bypass many of the countermeasurs protecting these machines and their comparatively fragile innards. Several burst into flame outright, while others, already confused by Maaka's chaff, begin firing into ONE ANOTHER instead.

    Gaonoir's dark power crosses the battlefield and smashes hard into one of the elevators. Its internal mechanisms choke and spasm as it begins to slow. The endless tide of machines flowing into the chamber seems to have abated somewhat!

    One might be mistaken in thinking the Gargantuan Guardian's own attacks have let up, but that's only because he has a much larger target to concern himself with. The King growls in mechanized pain as the energy projector in one of its palms is blown apart by Yuna's attack. But even as its limb belches black smoke, the giant reaches over its shoulders and grabs hold of what appears to be a PAIR OF EQUALLY GIANT AXES. "You shall not take this place!" Jotun bellows, surging in with uncanny speed. It swings its axes like a practiced fighter, their edges IGNITING with crackling, coruscating energies as it engages with the Matrix Figure.

    As it does battle with its most immediate foe, the smaller cannons at its waist begin angling shots at the group below. They fire GLOWING BLUE HOWITZER SHOTS that burst into cross-shaped columns of superheated gas upon contact with the ground.

    And through all this, Will is desperately trying to close the distance between he and Taiga. His expression is... complicated. Concerned and terrified and determined all at once. "Miss Nozomi," he murmurs, "Y'all don't have to keep doing this. That form-- I know you don't like using it, so...!" One of those blue shells cooks off nearby. Will goes flying with the shockwave. Gritting his teeth as he hurtles through the air, he lands in a tumbling mess that he only barely manages to turn into a makeshift roll.

Somehow, he gets close enough to Taiga for Nozomi to probably make it there on her own.

"Go!" Will says, his handgun coming away from his hip. Bolts of plasma sizzle through the air and blow a pair of autocannons off a nearby tank. "I got this!" He seems to be... kneeling, though, and one of his feet is bent at an... uncomfortable angle.

Did he... break something?

Again??

Alexis Maaka (571) has posed:
    Oh shit. Jotun's moving. Maaka may have been preoccupied before by the tanks, but she definitely notices Yuna and Jotun's battle, making sure to stay the hell away from that mess for the moment. Instead, she gets in close to one of the tanks, slinging her DLT while using her cloak to remain in stealth.

    Tossing a few smoke grenades to mask her approach further, the cyborg uses her grapple to snag herself to the tank, then she climbs aboard, sticking a block of C4 to the side of the machine. Then, she proceeds to try and rip one of the mini guns free with all her strength, forming some tools with a matter manipulator on the fly to rig the liberated mini gun for handheld usage. Hard to use a weapon that has no external trigger, after all.

    She then proceeds to turn the mini gun loose after snagging herself a belt's worth of ammo, using the weapon against one of the other tank-mecha with aplomb. "Get some." She grunts under her breath with a grin, hopping off the tank while setting off the C4 as an afterthought.

Starlight Bandits has posed:
    "Hrah! They're barely worth the scrap they leave behind!" Emilia barks as the tanks crumble so easily. She only has eyes for her giant robot... w-which is now tussling with ANOTHER GIANT ROBOT!? "OH MY GOD!" she squeaks, hopping from one foot to the other in glee. And, since it's so distracted, she can get up on it!

    Right up to the colossus' foot she goes. Now, does she have a grappling gun or somesuch? "Montgomery! Launch me up!" Clearly not. The tamed robot offers a hand for Emilia to stand on... before hurling her straight up into the air, aiming to get her onto the Guardian's shoulder!

Yuna Kagurazaka (385) has posed:
Yuna doesn't exactly breathe easier for taking out one of Code:Jotun's hand-beam-cannons; she's too busy staying worried about the rest of the threats which the group is dealing with. Unfortunately, that leaves its other hand, and the waist cannons which she can't do anything about, and a couple of beam axes whose blades are bigger than El-Line's wingspan.

As big as the Gargantuan Guardian is, Yuna barely has time to decide on how she's going to deal with this new aspect to the threat - and normal tactical doctrine wins out. "LIGHTNING SWORD!!" shouts Yuna, and with a crackling flash, El-Line's own melee weapon materializes in the Matrix Figure's right hand. That gives her something to parry the second axe with; she's trusting Shugoseiheki to handle the first one.

Of course, even super robots can't TOTALLY flaunt the laws of physics, and just parrying the Jotun Tomahawks straight on will most likely still send El-Line flying into one of the five flat surfaces which define the room in front of the GArgantuan Guardian - and Yuna can only hope it would be a *wall*, rather than the floor (which a number of her friends are on) or the ceiling (which all of her friends are *under*, and she wouldn't be able to deal with all the debris. So Yuna decides she'd better cheat a bit ... namely, by ducking and trying to catch the axes' shafts below the blades, closer to where the other robot is holding its weapons.

Physics again: catch the weapons where they're packing less velocity - not to mention *away from the damaging edges*.

Nozomi Houken (342) has posed:
    Will is going to be receiving a small surprise.

    "...I'm not transforming," Nozomi mumbles quietly.

    Taiga doesn't hear that part. So as he's approaching, he's already turning around as if to prepare, but Nozomi says, "Taiga, carry me up! I... I think I need to get close to its head." It's an unexpected-enough request that the TIGER turns to look at her with puzzlement, before lowering himself to let her on his back. She leans down to hold on tight without being told, only to murmur, "And... and hold your fire. Don't attack." He pauses again, then says simply, "As you wish."

    And then he's leaping. Straight up, with impressive strength, a high arc that will take both he and his passenger to Jotun's hull. From there, it's a scene right out of Shadow of the Colossus. Climbing, darting, evading defenses as best he can, all the while Nozomi holding on for dear life. He's aiming for the shoulder. Trying to get Nozomi up there, per her request. And as soon as she's as close as Taiga can get her, the girl... raises her voice again. "What... what are you doing?! What are you even protecting?! You're not... you're n-nothing but a great big bully right now, sending out robots to attack innocent people! What's... what's even the point of a protector that attacks people instead of protecting them..." By the end, she has run out of steam. But the fact that the fervor was there is telling.

    She has trouble standing up for herself. But after seeing those tankbots rolling out to attack innocent people in the past, she's more than capable of getting upset on behalf of others.

Gaonoir has posed:
Gaonoir as more gunfire starts to splay about the battlefield Gaonoir shifts, cloak swirling around the digimon and seeming to fizzle out with a blur of black and purple. Disappear? Not quite. It's more of a short range teleport through a limited medium.

More accurately, it's using his ability to shadowstep both to evade the worst of the gunfire and to move across the limited battlefield more quickly.

But he needs a shadow to step back out of, which would be why the armored wolfman does so by emerging from one of the robo-tank's shadow. Doing so makes it look like he's rising out of the ground where it's shadow is cast, grabbing onto the tank to lift it up as he does so. Followed by twisting around and swinging said tank towards the others near it, attempting to smash as many as possible before they get any more organized.

Kotone Yamakawa has posed:
Kotone Yamakawa hugs the form of the tank she's on like it's the person she loves most in the world, She reaches for her neck and pulls the cable out moving to jack it into the access point but things re nto going well teh rougns are flying as she's grzed several times and one of them gets close enough to detonate pepping her back with shrarpbnel, Kotone's forced to turn off her taticle senses to prevent her focus from being lost but it could cost her a good bit as she now attempts to get into the tanks code and seize control of it.

<< I need some cover here! The next hits going to do really bad things to me!>>

William Pauwel has posed:
So it turns out that combat cyborgs have enough upper body strength to grab tank-sized miniguns and wield them like Rambo wields heavy machineguns. Who'd'a thunk it?

    Explosive rounds belch from the liberated weapon, bursting into blossoms of flame and smoke! Maaka rakes her shots across several of the tanks, cratering armor and leaving a couple smouldering before *something* chokes in her new toy. Apparently it doesn't take well to being yanked off its hardpoint... Or maybe it just needs more ammo. Miniguns chew through that stuff fast.

    Gaonoir is tearing his way through the dwindling tank formations as well. It helps that he's apparently got Exotic Weapon Proficiency: Armored Vehicles, though. The digimon wields his tank like a particularly awkward club, smashing several nearby before the remaining units close in with their DRILL FISTS.

Drill fists that open up into SPINNING PLASMA CLAWS.

    Kotone, without as many distractions, is apparently able to break into the tank's code and take control! But it seems to still be fighting her by inches, the machine's movements are relatively sluggish. It seems they've got quite a security system.

    Far up above, two titans slug it out. Careful use of her relatively smaller size means Yuna is able to knock the first axe aside... But then Jotun seems to catch on and instead transitions his second swing into a devastating right hook, pivoting his body in such a way that his strength is brought straight into Yuna's crackling blade!

Back down below though, two people are deciding to brave the danger and to try and scale the mighty mountain that is CODE: Jotun. Emilia... Has her robot throw her straight up. Montomery is capable of doing a lot of things. He can mangle ferrets, cut open maintenance panels, punch holes in walls and make killer caramel macchiatos. But he's not so capable of body-chucking a grown woman and her grenade launcher fifty meters straight up. Still, an order is an order, and he tries, building cetrifugal force with one or two rotations before chucking Emilia skyward.

She gets pretty far! But she'll have to climb the rest of the way.

    Will looks surprised-- but glad at Nozomi's response. "Y'all be careful up there," he calls after her as he limps to a broken shell of a tank for cover. "We'll be just fine down here! Y'all do what you can!"

    Both Emilia and Nozomi would need to brave a number of dastardly point-defense weapons on their way up. Besides the main guns, it seems that Jotun is also equipped with POINT BLANK HEAT SINKS and ELECTRIFIED PANELS on the way to its shoulders, but they're nothing an experienced Chaser (or mechatiger) can't deal with, probably!

As for Nozomi...

Well.

    Jotun turns its single eye towards her. She can see now why it only has one-- the other appears to have been hewn from its face, the wound covered up by something that looks like a massive steel eyepatch. "What do I protect? Everything! This place. The Masters' Will. These weapons which rest until they are needed. They will be needed. The War is not yet over. And so Jotun stands at the gates, and none shall plumb the depths of this tomb!"

    "Those machines," Jotun rumbles, straightening as a port on its midsection lenses open, revealing a glowing, hollow aperture. It begins growing brighter and brighter-- "You ask why I sent them? You should ask why I did not send more! Was it not enough? Do you still strive for the powers sealed here!?"

    "You, Inheritors of the Masters," it rumbles, turning the terrible, building light towards Yuna. A column of power erupts with a sound like a thunderbolt. "Do you mean to say that you will not turn this power upon yourselves!?"

Yuna Kagurazaka (385) has posed:
"KYAAAAAAAAAAAAA---" Yuna shrieks as the punch sends El-Line hurtling towards the side wall, her cry only halting when the shock of impact punts the wind right out of her lungs. So it doesn't trail off so much as get choked off. And the Matrix Figure just ... hangs there, embedded in the wall like some new addition to the decor.

What makes things worse is that her shield is on the side of El-Line that's more or less embedded in the architecture, so she can't bring Shugoseiheki to bear when Jotun gets ready to blast her out of existence. Yuna herself barely has the strength at that moment to lift her head, wheezing, "I'm sorry ... I don't want to unleash this power on anyone. I thought ... coming here ... maybe I could stop it somehow. To make sure ... if nothing else ... that one with wisdom ... and compassion ..."

Her voice trails off; El-Line's frame sags, the lustre of its armor dimming visibly.

Either Yuna can't muster any kind of defense, or she simply *doesn't* - but between that one devastating hit and Jotun's accusation, it certainly seems like Yuna is helpless to put up any more of a fight. And if that blast hits true - well, the best-case scenario is that El-Line is blown apart and Yuna plummets out of the wreckage with a broken Light Suit. The worst-case scenario ... there wouldn't be a Yuna *left* to fall out of the wreckage.

Nozomi Houken (342) has posed:
    Nozomi listens. Her scowl deepens. This is exhausting for her on a mental level, mustering up so much fervor, but everything the Jotun says just brings it back. "Your... your masters are /dead/! Th-they're dead, they're /gone/, their war, it... i-it ended in every side losing... a long, long time ago..." She shakes her head vehemently. "If you want to keep these weapons out of everyone's hands, that's fine, b-but... but you /attacked/! You were the one attacking, y-you were the one... you were the one people needed protection /from/. These people... th-they're just... they're trying to live in the ruins of what your masters did... d-did to each other... and you're just... making their lives harder...! Y-you're already turning that power on us, so... so how are you any better?!"

    And then she hits it in the face.

    It is as completely ineffectual as one would expect a trembling, frightened and angry girl punching solid metal to be. It hurts her. It doesn't do a blessed thing to the hull. She knows it. Jotun can /see/ she knows it. But the more he says, the more this little mouse of a girl ends up fighting against her own nature.

    Even Taiga, seared as he is from the trip up (and protecting Nozomi with his body), is watching with quiet fascination.

Starlight Bandits has posed:
    Emilia clings to the edge of a panel on the Jotun. "I knew I should have sprung for the enhanced pistons!" she mutters grumpily as she begins her ascent, leaping from panel edge to panel edge with the air of an experienced climber. At least, until her hands get partially scorched by a heat sink! "YEEEEEEEEEEOW!"

    She bites her lower lip, and keeps climbing! "This won't stop me... nothing will. I WILL GET MY REVENGE! AND YOU'LL HELP ME, ROBOT!" she screams, digging her toes into a gap for purchase... for one final leap, to grab at the shoulder!

Xiao Li Yu (823) has posed:
     WHILE ALL OF THIS IS GOING ON...

     ...What's that MASSIVE buildup of electricity forming at the far back of the chamber, near the entrace? It's Xiao. And she's just standing there, are arms cross with a calm, amused smile on her face. "Thundaga."

     The lightning formed into a huge sphere, only growing larger and larger. "...Thundaga." Another surge of lightning, and it grew bigger. "....Thundaga." Another surge, the fluctuating orb of energy pulsing bigger. It was now several meters in radius, growing more and more unstable each passing moment. She should let it go sometime soon, shouldn't she?

     ...But she didn't. She watched, and she waited. Waited to see whether it was even necessary to let it loose just yet. But for good measure...

     "...Thundaga~"

     FWOOSH. Bigger still it becomes.

Kotone Yamakawa has posed:
Kotone Yamakawa is now locked in a cyberspace battle with the tank itself she's trying to take control and even if she can't well take total control she might be able to turn it off line or even get it at least to flag everyone as allied. She's really hoping if she's lucky she can get this thine for after but she's working to get more control she contiunes her digital assault trying to find wht systems she cna fully take over but she could end up getting locked down pretty bad at this rate.

<<I got partial control but I'm working on it!">>

Gaonoir has posed:
While she's staying back and out of the fight like a good Tamer, Erika isn't being useless... Well, mainly she's taking pictures of the fight as it goes on. Though she's also the first to notice one of the remaining tanks behind Gaonoir change it's weapons while he's swinging around the busted remains of one. "Gaonoir, behind you!"

Rather that take the extra time to look, Gaonoir reflexively turns around at the shout, and the plasma drill tears into the tank chunk he was still holding. The plasma weapon tears through it, and still hits him, but it's force is lessened somewhat by having to tear through the bottom of one of it's former comrades before burning into his armored torso. Metallic feet screech on the ground as he skids backwards from the blow, tearing a few ruts in whatever material it's made of.

Then he gets his bearings back together, eyes narrowing as the tactical feeds within his helmet light up. "Okay, fine, two can play at that game." Muscles beneath armor tense, legs flex briefly, and then mightily launch the Digimon back towards his attackers.

"ZENITH CLAW!"

He punchs foward with one set of energized warclaws as he hurtles at the remaining tankbots, with enough force to potentially blade-punch his way through several of them from the momentum.

Alexis Maaka (571) has posed:
    Maaka seems content to keep the mini gun spinning before she realizes she's already wasted the belt. Glancing down at her acquisition, her gut says to dump it, but instead she has a better idea. Storing it in her manipulator, she files a bit of tool time to modify and retrofit this thing for ammo she has plenty of. A conversion to different calibers might be a good call for this thing, if she's gonna keep it.

    Otherwise, she just kind of stands there in confusion as she looks up at the Jotun when it begins to talk. "...you can TALK?" She asks out of nowhere, sounding pretty stupid and knowing it too as she shakes her head moments later.

    Meanwhile, she swaps to a grenade launcher, firing high-explosive rounds at the tanks, knowing she needs some serious firepower for this one as things press on.

William Pauwel has posed:
    Yes Jotun can talk. Jotun has been pretty vocal on a number of issues. But until now, it's mostly just been roaring one form of wrathful battlecry or another. One would be excused for believing it was on some kind of prerecorded script or something like that.

    Now, though. Now he's staring down a giant technomagical robot, half broken on the other side of the room. His own beam continues its inexorable charging process. It seems as though nothing is going to stop it, even as Emilia finally crests the last few feet up onto its shoulder... And gets front-row seats as the Jotun prepares to fire--

*KLANG*

    It's a soft blow that rings out louder than it aught to have been capable of. The Jotun turns its eye to the girl glaring down at her. The small, weak, utterly mortal girl except for the beast she rode in on. Jotun growls, turning the blazing bolt building it its midsection aside. A column of raw, blinding *power* shoots across the room, melts through the broken carcasses of a half-dozen tanks, and...

Misses Yuna's broken frame by meters.

(Though Xiao might find the space immediately above her to be just a little bit molten right now)

    "If I had not attacked, they would have come." The Jotun answers. Far below, Maaka's grenades explode, unfolding into glowing, red-orange blossoms of flame and smoke. Gaonoir's claws tear through what she doesn't obliterate, the last of the tanks in the room falling before the force brought to bear against them by the assembled Elites. "I sent my forces to secure this tomb, to protect it from graverobbers. What I found were the broken remnants of a great civilization. /Dregs./ But dregs who did not yet know the curse of power. If I simply withdrew, they would have followed. They needed to fear this place."

    The Jotun heaves its great axes back over its shoulders, which mercifully doesn't actually move the armor there enough to unseat Emilia or Nozomi. "Fear is a powerful tool," it says, "I learned this from the Masters. If they would be made to fear, they would not come to look for what is kept in wait here."

    "You ask why I sent the forces I did," Jotun rumbles, moving slowly towards its throne. "But not why I did not dispatch more. For the lives that were lost, I apologize. I felt it necessary, to avert even greater loss."

    "Nevertheless, you are all here, now. You have destroyed my reinforcements, isolated me here, and you have that weapon," it gestures towards Xiao, "Prepared to fire upon me."

"It seems as though I have already failed in my mission," the giant rumbles... almost forlornly. But there's a fire in its voice- a zeal, or maybe a sense of fanaticism. "But you are mistaken. The War is not over. Ceasefire has not been declared. Victory's conditions have not yet been met. The Masters still live and my directive still stands."

Nozomi Houken (342) has posed:
    "...you... you haven't gotten a ceasefire, because there's no one left to give it... th-there's no victory, because there's no one left to fight..." Nozomi sounds... almost defeated. But at the same time, there's something under there. "...a-and yet... you'd... y-you'd rather... you'd rather cling to all that death, than... than help..." Xiao is about to fire. Taiga lunges, shifting his body so that Nozomi will fall onto his back, and then leaps. His user has visibly given up on trying to convince Jotun. But once again he winds up surprised. Because her voice comes out in almost a whimper, speaking his name. "...Taiga." And he knows that tone.

               "Disengaging Independent Mode. Rerouting Gensou                
                 Engine power to motive and combat systems."                  
                           "Rampart Mode engaged."                            

    The transformation is complete before they hit the ground.

    Nozomi banks around and up, taking advantage of the open space here to gain altitude, to climb up high, where she can stop for just a moment. A moment is all it takes to fire up, and then she can descend. Descend with a blade alight in yellow, a blade infused with magical energy intended to hone its cutting edge so that the blade will carve deeply - and then that same energy will explode, causing damage within. She's no fool, not with Taiga's battle experience; she aims, not for the head, but rather the chest, where she can potentially damage its power source, stop it from moving entirely. This is exactly the sort of thing her ultimate attack was made for.

                             "EM Siege Breaker."                              

Yuna Kagurazaka (385) has posed:
Well, Yuna thinks, she isn't dead yet. And she can more or less breathe again.

El-Line's armor brightens again - maybe only subtly, but it looks more like it did when it was summoned to begin with. Not pristine, maybe, but ... functional.

The Matrix Figure doesn't start extricating itself from the wall yet, though; Yuna's will to fight is pretty much nonexistent at this point. She REALLY doesn't want to let anyone else lay claim to the military resources that Jotun has been protecting - and if Nozomi is right about why Jotun's 'War' hasn't 'ended' officially, then ...

And the question assembles itself for her. "Who were you at war against?" she asks, El-Line's head lifting and turning to look right at Jotun. Although it may already be too late for the question to elicit an answer, between Xiao Li Yu and Nozomi herself.

Gaonoir has posed:
Gaonoir kicks the last chunk of a tank away, and turns his attention to the towering robot as it speaks. Tch. "That's the problem with being a guardian. Sooner or later someone that wants what you're guarding bad enough is going to show up."

A bit surprisingly, instead of joining in the attacks he just turns and walks back to where his Tamer is lurking out of the way. There's enough disabling firepower flying around.... And not that he'd admit it, he feels kind of sorry for the big mechanical lug. He kinda knows how the thing feels... well, if it can actually feel the sentiment. You get the idea.

Erika.. is too busy trying to get the entire titanic robot in a picture frame before everyone trashes it to comment on the matter. Oi, nerds.

Xiao Li Yu (823) has posed:
     Hoo boy. Look at that energy blast. It just barely missed Yuna's frame and struck the wall, melting things down and doing all sorts of interesting stuff!

     Xiao just smiled all the while, looking more entertained than she really should have been. And as Jotun returns to it's throne. Her smile widens a little more, and she removes a hand from her sleeves, waving cutely towards the towering giant of a robot.

     "Hello, hi! Thank you for your riveting speech, but from what I hear, you don't plan on backing down, do you? Well!" She raised that hand back, fingers prepared to snap.

                                 "Phantom Weapon"                            

     A bright blue sigil formed in the air, facing the giant and creating a portal of some kind before the massive sphere of electricity. And then Xiao snapped her fingers.

                                "Thundaga Cannon"                            

     And finally, the sphere of lightning exploded, surging forward and passing through the portal. Upon contact, the wild electricity was molded, reformed, changed into something more uniform...A crackling azure cannon that pierced through the air of the chamber, barreling upwards and aiming to blast Jotun directly. Given the sheer size of that hulking titan, surely there was no way she could actually *punch through it*, but a large enough surge of electricity should at least... Well, shut it down perhaps. Or scramble it into non-threat territory.

     Whatever, really. She just had to get rid of this buildup at this point!

Xiao Li Yu (823) has posed:
     Immediately following firing that however?

     There was a splotch of molten material that landed right next to her, barely missing landing ON her. "EEP!" She leapt aside, scrambling away as the sheer heat proximity seared at her skin. Ow ow ow!

Kotone Yamakawa has posed:
Kotone Yamakawa has to say the people who made the tank and gets it to finally shut down they can figure out what to do with it later it's quite the bit of salvage though if it has a mind like the j unit? She doesn't know she'll find out later for now she disconnects from the unit and leaps off as the final showdown seems to be pending with the Jotun. She hops off and now attemps to get to some coer she also turns on her pain recepators back on to prevent further extra damage to her self but she doesn't seem to like it she looks up for a moment now to debate what to do next.

"..."

William Pauwel has posed:
    A misunderstanding? A lack of information? Or maybe this situation has come about simply because there was only one way this was ever going to end. Jotun watches as Nozomi undergoes her transformation. Its single red eye glows serenely from the hollow within its head.

Did it expect this to happen? Or does the machine simply not comprehend the implications of its own destruction?

Or maybe...

    Its hands fold into open palms. Vanes on its wrists hinge outwards and alight like little sattelite dishes. The air around it ripples as a wave of raw force washes outward, meeting Nozomi's descent with light that glows like the fading sun. She's seen this kind of shield before. It's similar to the one the unit in the desert had deployed- but it seems less integrated than that giant had wielded, almost as if someone had modified Jotun's design to make use of it after the fact.

Still. It holds. It holds for as long as it can. Xiao's attack smashes into it- a veritable river of electricity flows into the glowing wall, streaming through and around it. The Jotun turns its eye towards the El-Line in the distance, its voice is deep and mirthful. "You ask that of me now? Very well. It is not who we were at war with. It is *WHAT!*" Cracks form in the giant's shield, rays of light lance from the spiderweb fractures as the generators on its arms begin to smoke and smolder. "A scourge that devoured all it touched! A monster the likes of which none had ever known! A foe so great that Victory was the only answer! And yet the Masters brought it upon themselves! Their Salvation!"

The shield splinters.

"Their Damnation!"

"CODE: PA--"

What is left is lost in the sound of its barrier breaking to pieces, falling away like shattered glass. Electricity pours into its body as the EM Siege Breaker makes contact. But its arms are raised to protect its chest. The sun that pulses within blazes defiantly against the forces levied against it, until finally it could give no more. Metal and ceramic tear away as Nozomi's blade cracks the hollow of its chest and explodes within.

The Jotun's eye dims as a narrow hole is blasted out the back side of its torso. It falls to its knees, smoking and smoldering, whatever was left of its answer lost to the cataclysmic noise of its own destruction.

Gaonoir has posed:
"Unfortunately, a war doesn't end just because the ones that instigated it are gone. Soldiers that don't know anything else will keep on fighting, because that's all they have." Gaonoir just folds his armored arms, watching as the titanic robot drops to the ground in a row of metallic noise.

Erika lowers her camera to tilt her head back and give him a sympathetic look. "I guess that's a position you know pretty well."

"More that I would like to admit." Gaonoir lets out a low sigh, which is followed by a digital crackling as he reverts back to his usual base form. "But I've gotten over that. Mostly. Thanks to... help."

"The who were you..." A pause as realization hits Erika. "Ooooo. Right. Your, ahem, old friends."

Nozomi Houken (342) has posed:
    For once, the cold look on Nozomi's face when she breaks away from the target of her attack, is not so simple. There is something under that hardness in her eyes. A complicated set of emotions. Could she have done things differently? Could she have talked the thing down entirely? It was still a potential threat to the people out there. It thought 'put the fear of god in people so they stay away' was an acceptable excuse for human lives. What else would it have done in the name of 'protecting its weapons' for a war that seems long over?

    It's a mental debate that she's ill-equipped for in her transformed state. And after she lands, after Taiga folds away and releases her... for once, Nozomi doesn't tremble. She's utterly silent, eyes down towards the ground, lost in thought. 'Wondering if she did the right thing' is a new experience for her. And it's not fun.

Alexis Maaka (571) has posed:
    Maaka doesn't have much that can unleash this kind of power, maybe an RPG? She can't spare those on a whim, mind, so she lets the grenade launcher lower before she stores it back in her inventory. She has to wonder what kind of programming would force a robot to act this way, or if it just decided to do so after becoming self-aware somehow.

    It's not something that can be easily answered, as such, she just brushes ash and dust from her armor briefly while producing some tools to fix a few chinks in her armor, smoothing over cracks after prying out stray bullet wounds and shrapnel that got lucky in all the excitement.

Starlight Bandits has posed:
    Finally, Emilia reaches the shoulder. But she has to hold on, as a beam blasts right through her precious robot! To be honest, she had been tuning it out this whole time. Anything it had to say that wasn't, "Let's destroy the weasels" was simply of no interest to her.

    Looking down at the damage that was wrought, she rubs her chin. "That's going to be expensive to fix... but! It'll all be worth it in the end~ Good job everyone!" Now that it's not a combat situation, she can wait on reprogramming it. Thus, she begins her slow descent back down, burned hand be damned.

Kotone Yamakawa has posed:
Kotone Yamakawa watchesw it all play out and she simple close her eyes for a moment and takes a deep breath but she's also looking pretty hurt her back is all torn up to the point her4 gear is shredded back there and her robotic internals are expposed for a moment.

" She head over to Maaka for a moment. She slumps on the side of the tank she's shut down and she mutters.

"I'm not doing ... so good..."

She looks sadly at the hulk shuddering a bit, they'd almost got to it...almost but not quite...

Alexis Maaka (571) has posed:
    Maaka sighs, her helmet unfolding as she removes it and places it in her lap when she sits down besides Kotone. "C'mere." She stops her own repairs to treat Kotone's injuries, or at least dress them properly until they can get repaired by a qualified expert.

    She'll just be at this for a while.

Xiao Li Yu (823) has posed:
Once all was said and done...and Xiao was safely away from any errant molten discharge, she smiled and wiped her hands off, before they retreated back into her sleeves, arms folding in her usual manner.

     "Well! That's that then. And our dear friend is still mostly intact too. How fortunate~" Quite satisfied with the proceedings, and completely missing the SORROWFUL OVERTONES, the researcher immediately turned and wandered off to the nearest tank remains, beginning to root through them for anything useful or interesting.

     "Now for those samples~"

     Priorities.

Yuna Kagurazaka (385) has posed:
Only now, with the fighting over, does El-Line start seriously trying to extricate itself from the wall. It gives up after a couple of moments -

And just vanishes into shimmering light, with Jiina, Marina, Erina, Elner, and a battered- and exhausted-looking Yuna rematerializing. And no sooner has Yuna fully reappeared than she pretty much topples over, only to be caught by Jiina.

Not that the Savior of Light would have much to say even if she were bright-eyed and bushy-tailed like she *normally* is ... that fight took too much out of her, physically and emotionally.

Kotone Yamakawa has posed:
Kotone Yamakawa says "Thanks Maaka..." She just lets the otehr cyborg work. She's come a long way but she still doesn't like to look at her injuries it causes a dissonace in her mind to see her insides. She just takes a moment and holds still as a corpse while Maaka works.

William Pauwel has posed:
    Will crawls out from under the makeshift cover he'd tucked himself into and roughly dusts himself off. Another day, another ruin that proved to be WAY worse than he'd thought they could ever get. At least he's sort of getting used to this sort of thing by now. But... There was something he'd wanted to try. The Chaser digs his oversized handcannon out from its holster and lightly presses it at the broken giant's smoldering right arm.

    He-- leaves it there, though. Because Nozomi went and transformed, after he said she didn't need to, and that's... That ain't exactly right. Will stops just ahead of her-- his scuffed boots and limpworthy ankle probably jutt just so into her field of view. "You keep cleanin' up after my messes," Will says, frowning. "Miss Nozomi, are you... Are you going to be alright?"

Nozomi Houken (342) has posed:
    Nozomi almost doesn't seem to have realized Will was there. Not until he speaks, anyway. She looks up as if she'd forgotten where she was, giving him a short-lived glance. Shorter than normal. And while last time she transformed, she insisted she'd be fine... now, even though she seems less perturbed by the transformation itself than usual, her response is a mumbled, "I-I..."

    "...don't know..."